Posts Tagged ‘xtreme bass tackle’

The newSt Clair Report website has many tools to help anglers catch more fish plus a news section called “Fresh Catch” which is updated daily. We find links to fishing articles around the country and the world here. One thing that sets it apart from other fishing sites is that the links are updated daily.

If you are looking for the latest and greatest info from around the fishing industry, this is the place to be. Here is an example of what you can expect from “Fresh Catch:”

At we get into the northern fishing season you will see more articles pertaining to tournament bass fishing as well.

Use St. Clair Report to see what is happening around Lake St. Clair. Use the tools on the website to plan your next trip out, to learn more and to catch more fish. While you are doing that, keep your eye on “Fresh Catch.” It’s an entertaining and informative section of the website with fresh posts every day..

JUST RELEASED!

St. Clair Reportbrings you the latest news, articles, videos, tips and information about Lake St. Clair fishing. This roll out in March is just the beginning. Like a great fishing trip, you can come back to this site every day and find newly posted information that can make your Lake St. Clair experience the best that it can be.

Regular Fishing Reports – On site reports from around the Lake plus any other scrap of information that we can dig up to help put you on a great day of fishing!

News – Articles posted regularly to keep you up-to-date with events and people who matter

Links – Updated daily we look for the most interesting content about fishing Lake St. Clair and around the world

Quick access hot links – On the front page you have current weather then links off to the National Weather Service marine forecast, NOAA Satellite, U.S. Corps of Engineers water level data, current buoy water temps and more.

New and unique content – Articles and videos about the Lake and events brought to you by area experts including Canada fishing professional Bob Mann, St. Clair bass fishing information expert and author Capt. Wayne Carpenter, and more.

You can start getting up-to-date information on Lake St. Clair bass fishing at www.stclairreport.com. This website is designed to keep anglers apprised of changes in the Lake, fishing pressure, tournaments, landmarks, news stories, links and more. The site is owned and operated by Capt. Wayne Carpenter who has a passion for getting the word out about this world class bass fishery.

Right now there are a couple of reports from Bob “Jigger” Mann Sr. about the ice conditions on the South Shore of Lake St. Clair in Canada. Bob has documented the state of the shoreline and has thrown in some pointers about what we this might mean for our bass fishing spots in 2016.

Bob “Jigger” Mann Sr. stands on the South Shore of Lake St. Clair in Canada 02-20-2016

Get this inside scoop on what has been happening with Lake St. Clair bass fishing and what to expect this year.

How has the dramatic rise in the water levels over the last few years changed the fishing.

Why is the smallmouth bass bite different?

Is there anything else you need to know that can improve the numbers and size of smallmouth you catch this year?

Learn to use the power of “trends” to your advantage. Be in the right place at the right time by knowing big water seasonal smallmouth migration patterns. Know how to adjust to weather trends and fluctuations in water temperature.

Find out about the NEW St. Clair Report website which has tools, links and current news that will put you on top of information critical to your success on this body of water. Have fast access to marine weather, satellite imaging, internet chart of Lake St. Clair, hot links to current issues in fishing, news about local events, tips about fishing Lake St. Clair and more.

This seminar is given by Capt. Wayne Carpenter, who has been dedicated to getting the information out about Lake St. Clair through books (No Secrets on Lake St. Clair series), maps, blogs and through a product line of tube baits custom designed through research on what the smallmouth on Lake St. Clair want. Enjoy his “no holds barred” approach to getting to getting the word out about the smallmouth bass in this world class fishery.

Whether it’s hunting, fishing, boating, canoeing, hiking, mushroom hunting or bird watching, this show has plenty to offer. The Outfitter’s Expo area along with major feature attractions like Big Buck Night and the Trout Pond provide the best place to book the trip of a lifetime or entertain the family. In addition, with a huge display of boats, docks and lifts, and marine accessories, this show is the best place to shop for new boats and accessories. Outdoorama is a must-see for everyone who loves the outdoors.

Another one of Jeff Ferraiuolo’s monster smallmouth caught on a Sweet Green tube

There is a difference between having a “confidence bait” and a bait that you can have confidence in. A confidence bait is one that you throw all year long, the bait that you “go to” in tough fishing conditions, the bait that you wouldn’t go out on the water without. A bait that you can have confidence in is one that has proven itself to be effective in the field.

Here is a short list of baits that you can have confidence in:

Spinnerbaits

Topwater

Crankbaits

Spinbaits

Tubes

Worms

Soft plastics

There is absolutely no doubt that each of these baits work out on the water. It is also a pretty good bet that not all of these are confidence baits for you. You probably have confidence that these baits are a better choice under certain conditions. Take topwater for instance. A tube might be your confidence bait but if you are launching at “first light,” a topwater bait might be your first selection.

So how about an entire product line that you can have confidence in?

How many times have you gone to a lake to fish and have found a product line that was specifically designed for that exact lake? Xtreme Bass Tackle tubes have been developed for over 15 years in the testing laboratory that we call Lake St. Clair. Through field testing, the winners have risen to the top of the list of available tube colors, and the losers have gone by the wayside. What you have left are baits that you can have confidence in when you fish Lake St. Clair.

Here is how they break down:

CRAYFISH IMITATORS

St. Clair Crayfish™ – Top seller since 2008, strong for smallies and largemouth. Can be used in conjunction with Canadian Mist as a companion bait. Active bite all year long. Good in shallow and deep water.

Sand Craw™ – A sleeper bait that has been known to light up the smallmouth on the South Shore and at Strawberry Ridge. Works best around sand or sand/rock structure combinations. A solid second string alternative when your confidence baits aren’t being bit.

Brown Craw™ – It is rising in popularity and tough to keep in stock. If you are targeting bass that are feeding on crayfish, this gives you another color to present to a school of smallmouth. The natural muted tone of the plastic is highlighted by small copper flake.

Great Lakes Craw™ – A proven tournament money maker and a favorite of Bob “Jigger” Mann Sr, a Canadian fishing professional. The drop-shot version of this bait is strong for big fish.

GOBY IMITATORS

St. Clair Goby Classic™ – The tube that revolutionized the laminated bait industry by introducing color flake in the laminate. It still performs to this day and is known as a big fish bait.

St. Clair Goby NFT™ – The gobies have changed in color and this redesign “matches the hatch.” This bait is almost impossible to beat in either a drop-shot tube or a 4” tube. The highlight flake in the laminate is small purple.

Erie Goby – This design that is based on gobies from Lake Erie is strong for schooling smallmouth on Lake St. Clair. The two top flake colors to have in a plastic bait for bass are purple and copper and this bait has both.

Muskegon Goby™ – Although designed off of the gobies in Muskegon Lake this sister to St. Clair Goby NFT™ is very effective on Lake St. Clair in the morning. It has copper flake in the top whereas St. Clair Goby NFT™ has purple in the top. There are times when the bass will like one better than the other.

BAIT FISH IMITATORS

Alewife™ – There has been a real shift in the way smallmouth eat on Lake St. Clair, and they have been driving schools of alewife to the surface. This bait was made to take advantage of that.

Emerald Shiner (by Reaper Products) – This is the grandfather of the laminate bait explosion. It’s longevity speak to how effective that is has been.

Great Lakes Perch™ – This bait design was two years in the making but it was worth it. Attention to detail in both the dominant and highlight colors in perch forage has made this a performer for catching big fish. It is one of the baits that you want to throw to hook up with big fish. Largemouth bass have an unusually strong appetite for it as well.

INSECT IMITATOR

Mayfly™ – This bait plays an important part in the story of the Lake St. Clair experience. The mayflies will come and change the bite for around a month and a half of a very short season. This bait was designed around the best elements the bass were looking for in emerging mayflies. As it turns out, it is a bait that is effective year round.

PROVEN THROUGH FIELD TESTING

Sweet Green™ – The blockbuster bait of 2015 out-fished everything else and continues to sell out due to demand. It has what smallmouth crave, and that is purple flake combined with a Formula G3 laminate and see-through green belly.

Canadian Mist – This legendary bait has been the best seller of all time not because it is popular, but because it catches bass everywhere and anglers keep coming back for more. Use it on Lake St. Clair when conditions are at their worst or at their best. This color is known for drop-dead consistency!

Formula G3™ (by Reaper Products) – This is the second best color of all time and besides being highly sought after by anglers in the drop-shot tube and 4” tube, has a real “big fish” bite on the 5” tube.

Slither™ – In early spring and up until mid-June this bait fishes even stronger than Canadian Mist. The gold sliver flake embedded in the dark melon plastic makes it one of the most natural tubes in the melon family. It works everywhere.

So by all means, take your confidence bait out on Lake St. Clair and have fun with the smallmouth in this world class fishery. If you stock up with Xtreme Bass Tackle baits that you can have confidence in, you can also load up the boat with an entirely new batch of smallmouth. Baits that smallmouth have told us prefer on this body of water.

In a month-by-month comparison, January 2016 water level numbers came in three feet above the same period in 2015. Also, the trend line for 2016 is moving up while during the same period last year it was going down.

Looking forward you can see that it shows a two-foot drop in the water levels over 2015 by July, if you accept the projection for the rest of the year. So a three-foot increase in January may not result in an increase in the water levels during the height of the bass tournament fishing season.

In a second exciting show of the young 2016 season Xtreme Bass Tackle™ will be bringing in a boatload of the tube that sold out in January, Sweet Green™. If you missed stocking up on the “top bait of 2015” come to Outdoorama to get them and more.

More includes the full line of Xtreme Bass Tackle products plus NEW No Secrets on Lake St. Clair™ seminars which will feature a newly launched website, St. Clair Report™. Anglers who want to stay on top of everything having to do with Lake St. Clair can now have a single source for the top news items plus fast access to tools to increase your catch. See more about the St. Clair Report™ in an upcoming blog.

The Outdoorama will be held at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Michigan on February 25th – 28th.

In this new era of year-round catch-and-release bass fishing, does “Opening Day” still matter? To many it does. Most definitely for the tournament angler who has to wait until the official opener to participate in an event where bass are brought back to be weighed in.

“Opening Day” is also a metric that theoretically marks the end of the bass spawning period. The dates were set up with the intention of holding off the harvest of bass until the spawn was over. In a perfect world, the dates are very solid for marking the end of the spawn period in most of the State. In reality, the weather and most significantly, the temperature during the spring will either advance or slow down the timing of the spawn. It’s data that is worth keeping a close eye on.

Note: The waters that are contained around Lake St. Clair Metropark (from the mouth of the Black Creek back into the park) are considered inland waters.